Let's do something... shall we? Six months and 23 days isn't really that long, is it? What can I say? I think I may pick this one out of the ashes.
Chapter 14 / Be Someone in Fast Cars
Shrill, piercing, ringing, slicing, blood flowing down onto the concrete; her lungs were tight underneath the ancient oak. The sky didn't look Prussian blue and the trees didn't look baby's lullaby green. Ink poured from the clouds, Indian rust embedding itself in the Chap Stick she slathered on in attempts to squelch the parched flakiness that oozed and gasped for water – more water. Her chest constricted. Her heart quit beating. Her mind raced. Her eyes watered. Her arms hung forward so her palms could have a secret meeting with her knees. No, the sky wasn't for the Weimar Republic just as the trees didn't give her Sesame Street hope any longer.
Jude gazed longingly over her shoulder. Where did the tin soldiers go? Who were the damsels supposed to turn to?
"Jude..." The mixed emotions weren't as lovely as they were when he sighed her name. She wrinkled her nose is contempt at the abuse the sudden rushing of exhalation from her mother seemed to inflict upon her already weary body. She'd known this wouldn't be easy but in one word, faith in J-shaped pancakes and tender bedtime stories to pass away the hours 'til half past ten seemed to fade into the forgiven bathroom, the putrid doctor, and cotton sheets that were always cool and smelled of gin.
She stooped lower down than she thought possible, taking three steps forward before backtracking and taking a guarded stance behind the wingback chair nearest the door. A sharp intake of air caused the humming in the room to intensify, Victoria nervously running her hands along the length of her box-cut trousers.
"I thought... Aren't you supposed to be..."
"In the hospital?" Her stammering was making Jude's head spin. "I got out."
"When? How?"
Jude ran her fingers over her lips, pushing at the corners, hoping for a smile to reassure her that it was all okay. She thought of turning and looking at Tommy, her brilliant saviour in motorcycle leather. Victoria beat out the recognition with a quick glance over her daughter's head.
"I take it that you got her out, then." She looked downstage towards Jude once more. "Did they say you were well?"
"They didn't say anything, Mom."
Uptight, fighting, belligerence, hands to ears and screaming to kill her voice once again; her neck had finally cooled down and the scarlet subsided but rerecording sprang forth somewhere in the mish-mash graffiti raining down in vaporized acrylic paint. She could feel her mind crumbling around her. She could see the small glass orb of her psyche cracking into a thousand pieces and falling piece by piece into the bottomless pit that lay beneath as the transparent pedestal.
"It's good to have you home, sweetie." Victoria rushed beyond the line of control, embracing Jude in a tight hug. She pried the honeysuckle cashmere away from Tommy's omnipotent cotton t-shirt, kissing her mother instinctively and regrettably on the cheek.
"I'm not coming home. Not now, not yet."
Victoria huffed, backing away with her eyes wide.
"Do not tell me we are going to start this again. Jude," Jude closed her eyes and touched her mother's arm gently.
"I'm not starting anything. Please understand..."
Jude looked up to see the forgotten doll, the raggedy Andy she'd begged her father to grant her, stand before her stoically. Again, she played with her mouth, transfixed by the roughness she couldn't rub off. She bit down on her tongue, blinking rapidly and trying to comprehend the sadness that coated his thick eyelashes. She grabbed onto her wrist, pretending she was pulling herself back from the depths beginning – begging – to swallow her whole. Her hands were too hot. Her hands were too small. He hands weren't amber waves of grain or purple mountain's majesty or anything else that would make her feel some expatriate's homeland security.
She nodded quickly, making a lazy attempt for the snake pit, the garden of temptation and apples. He didn't move in her peripheral; he didn't move at all.
"Please tell me I don't really scare you, Tommy." The sound of her voice reminded her of the late night code breaking, of Kwest. "I don't want to be your mother."
The rustling of his crisp jeans was lost in the wind, the rubber footsteps tentative and calculated. She counted each one, multiplying them by the cracks in the sidewalk. Where was the trite and childish dandelion to wish away deals such as these?
"You aren't my mother. I could figure this out – find some sort of solution and make some sort of plan to fix everything if you were." His forearms breezed by hers coolly, him stopping at her side and leaning up against a neighbor's car. She followed the pathetic trail of ants climbing over the small pebbles that littered the suburban landscape to whatever adobe nest that held all of their mothers, fathers, sisters, disastrous lovers, and music makers.
"You don't have to fix me. You don't have to fix anything." She'd meant for it be a resolution not another stupid plea of insanity.
"Yes I do." She'd stirred his muted conviction, fired up the unyielding gavel of order. "I have a running history with this, don't I? I'm pretty sure I drive everyone over the edge."
She held up a hand to stop his tirade, turning to look at him as if the grizzly things blanketing the rooftops and his messy hair weren't what haunted her most.
"We're past blame games and pity parties." He blinked down at his hands in resignation. You've got to make a decision – leave tonight or live and die this way. "Let's go home, Tommy. Nothing can be salvaged here."
Whining, crying, misplaced anger, pleading, road blocks in garish orange rerouting the path down some persecuting detour; once again, the jury was back and she hung.